Hendrick Motorsports' success left little excitement

After Matt Kenseth turned the 2003 championship into a less-than-scintillating one-man show, NASCAR chairman Brian France decided the time was right for a new points format.

Thus the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship was born.

Beginning in 2004, the season was divided into two parts. The 26-race "regular season" determined the top 10 drivers in the standings. They then had their points reset for a 10-race shootout.

It looked like France had hit a home run when five drivers went into the final race separated by just 82 points and, in the end, Kurt Busch beat Jimmie Johnson by eight points and Jeff Gordon by 16 - the closest two- and three-way finishes in the history of the stock car sanctioning body.

"That was amazing," Busch said. "I guess we all thought it was going to be like that every year."

It hasn't been anywhere near that close since.

This season, with two additional drivers added to the Chase, as well as a new twist - seeding the drivers for the start of the postseason by regular-season wins - teammates Johnson and Gordon overpowered the competition.

During the final 10 events, Gordon had an average finish of 5.1 - and lost the title by 77 points.

That's because the amazing Johnson had an average finish of 5.0.

He closed out the Chase with four straight wins and a season-ending seventh-place run that sealed his second title in a row.

"This year, Hendrick Motorsports just seemed to come out of the gate stronger than anybody," Busch said. "The way they performed during the Chase, and to win that many races, you could consider it something that usually doesn't happen all that often.

"I don't think that the philosophy needs to change, as far as how you approach the Chase. Jimmie just put together that strong of a run. It wasn't a boring Chase. It wasn't a blowout. But to see a guy win 10 races in one season, I thought that era was over."

The drivers leading the points heading into the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway have won every Chase, and since Busch's narrow victory in 2004 none have been as close or exciting.

Tony Stewart had a solid lead going into the finale and won by 35 points over Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards in 2005, Johnson beat Matt Kenseth by 56 points last year and was never in trouble last Sunday on the way to beating Gordon, his friend and mentor, for another championship.

"To me, the Chase is exciting every year," said Johnson, who has been first or second heading into the final race of the season every year since 2003. "I'm sure NASCAR will continue to tweak it a little now and then to make it even better, but I think it's just unusual for two drivers to have the kind of runs that Jeff and I had this year, with almost nothing going wrong in 10 races."

Although attendance is down at some of the Chase tracks and TV ratings are down for NASCAR across the board, France is pretty happy with his brainchild after its first four years - and especially with the changes made in 2007, including giving the drivers who qualified for the Chase a 10-point bonus for each regular-season win when points were adjusted for the start of the playoff.

"One thing we wanted to do that was important to us was to elevate winning, make winning mean more and get that benefit on the track of the drivers competing harder," he explained.

France pointed to Johnson choosing to race hard for the win last month at Texas instead of settling for second place, even though that would still have given him the points lead.

"I think drivers are beginning to understand the emphasis we've put on winning."

France acknowledges NASCAR would be happier if every year was like the first Chase, with four or five drivers racing for the title right to the end. But, he noted, this is the way competition works at times.

"It happens in all sports," France said. "Right now, in the NFL, you have the Patriots outplaying everyone else. It happens.

"Jimmie Johnson and his whole team have had a fabulous year. He's better than everybody else right now. It doesn't matter. If somebody's better, we're not going to put a system out that gives somebody an advantage that's not better."

And France was quick to point out that the old format, awarding the same points through the entire 36-race season, would have had even less excitement, with Gordon - who had a record 30 top-10 finishes - winning by more than 300 points over Johnson.

"We'd love to have more people in the championship battle," France said. "But we're very happy with what we've got right now. It's not something that needs to be fixed."